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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28411119">There Are Plenty of Lives</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/leslielol/pseuds/leslielol'>leslielol</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Law &amp; Order: SVU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Barisi Holiday Exchange 2020, Day At The Beach, M/M, Reunions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:28:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,054</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28411119</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/leslielol/pseuds/leslielol</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s good to see you, too,” Barba says, lightly patting Carisi’s back as he pulls away. His smile--once cautious and a little sad--is wily and sharp. There’s almost a hint of teeth revealed from one corner as he further names the circumstances: “On a yacht. Going to the Pines.” </p>
<p>Carisi laughs and goes a little pink for the implication. But Barba’s not teasing him needlessly; he’s curious.</p>
<p>“Give me that story, first,” Barba says. “Mine’s surely not as fun.” </p>
<p>[Prompt: <i>Rafael and Sonny don’t actually start dating until after Raf leaves the DA’s office.</i>]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Barisi Holiday Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>There Are Plenty of Lives</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlfromcarolina/gifts">girlfromcarolina</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For girlfromcarolina. I hope you enjoy this fic based on your delightful prompt: <i>Rafael and Sonny don’t actually start dating until after Raf leaves the DA’s office.</i> I really enjoyed writing this! There’s a healthy bit of canon divergence, because I’ve reworked how Barba left the DA’s office. As in, it’s not as bonkers as in the show. ;)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Barba sees him first. </p>
<p>In a grey t-shirt and slightly greyer hoodie, with a backpack slung over one shoulder and his free hand clutching his phone, Carisi looks like the new boy in school, already dreading all he doesn’t know. </p>
<p>He’s standing by the boarding ladder, as if--despite the yacht having pulled from the dock--there’s still a chance he can change his mind and go back. </p>
<p>Barba realizes he must be losing his touch, because he isn’t devastated by this turn of events: he does not immediately summon an argument for a confrontation he expects will find him, doesn’t manifest excuses after that, doesn’t exact countermeasures because he doesn’t <i>feel</i> uneasy with this meeting. The tightness in his chest is thrilling, like a revival of forgotten faith, and he lets it corrupt his sense of self-preservation. </p>
<p>Barba looks Carisi’s way, and smiles. </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Unable to move, Carisi just stares. He recognizes the green eyes and perfectly coiffed hair, the confidence exuded in the man’s posture. Maybe the casual clothes are new, and the beard. What does him in and makes him doubt the whole package is the soft, sad smile offered up as Barba pushes off the railing and approaches him. </p>
<p>“You’re back in the city,” Carisi says, by virtue of wanting <i>not</i> to be the one who couldn’t say anything. “The Lieu said you were out of town. But that was a while ago, I guess.” </p>
<p>It isn’t what he wants to say, what he’s fantasized of saying for months. It’s just words that he manages, none dug too deep or stretched too far. He means to hold onto it--his frustration and hurt that Barba never reached out to him, or responded in kind when Carisi sent emails and texts and left that last, defeated voicemail--but the simple reality is it’s too nice a thing: the sun, the skies, the water, and this man he’s admired for years, cutting a sharp figure between it all. </p>
<p>Carisi gives in, says, “It’s good to see you.”</p>
<p>And it’s that allowance that sends him spiraling into the next: he hugs Barba. He gets the overwhelming sense it’s like returning to something, even if it’s nothing they’ve ever shared. It feels he’s giving in to some greater impulse than what it must amount to for any chance onlookers: a catch-and-release effort, with time only to squeeze the man close before regaining a sense of composure. Carisi finds he feels unburdened for it, and the dizzying lightness leaves him giddy.</p>
<p>“It’s good to see you, too,” Barba says, lightly patting Carisi’s back as he pulls away. His smile--once cautious and a little sad--is now wily and sharp. There’s almost a hint of teeth revealed from one corner as he further names the circumstances: “On a yacht. Going to the Pines.” </p>
<p>Carisi laughs and goes a little pink for the implication. But Barba’s not teasing him needlessly; he’s curious.</p>
<p>“Give me that story, first,” Barba says. “Mine’s surely not as fun.” </p>
<p>Any uneasiness--imagined or expected--is shattered. Carisi talks because it comes natural to him to fill the void, to appease silence with sound, and most of all, because Barba seems pleased to hear him. There are some faces made at the telling, some sly comments. But by and large Barba lets him go, and speaks only sparingly, as if he’s got his verbal weapons sheathed and doesn’t mean to do battle. </p>
<p>Carisi centralizes in his explanation a <i>friend</i> and a similarly <i>friendly</i> invitation. But the truth is weaved throughout: this friend knew how exhausted Carisi had been with work, knew that weekends were for cancelling plans and doomed-to-fail attempts to catch up on sleep. Carisi admits this is his first weekend spent anywhere other than his couch in weeks, maybe months.</p>
<p>“...So I’m standing at the dock and he’s texting me that he’s in Yonkers--family emergency, his sister’s having her baby early--and that I ought to go on ahead, so… here I am. On a boat. With a bunch of strangers. And you.” </p>
<p>One of those facts sits heavy on Carisi’s chest. He fidgets, looks over Barba’s head and across the water. </p>
<p>Barba, sensing Carisi’s unease and realizing he’s never heard anything shy of utmost confidence from the man, misplaced or not, says, “I don’t know half of these people, either.” </p>
<p>He gestures loosely, adding: “It’s Jonathan’s boat. And house. You’ll meet him, if you haven’t already. He likes flitting about, getting one good story and moving on.”</p>
<p>Two men adorned in bright shorts and long-sleeved knit sweaters with varying degrees of shawl and quarter-zip collars squeeze by; they’d been sunning on the higher level with others, but heard whispers of a liquor cabinet in the lower level. One claps Barba’s arm as he goes, recognizing him vaguely.</p>
<p>“New beard?” the man says, Barba’s name escaping him.</p>
<p>“Copied yours,” Barba returns casually.  </p>
<p>The man’s grin parts his own salt-and-pepper look. “Colored it.”</p>
<p>“Shamelessly!” Barba calls back. The man barks a <i>Ha!</i> as his head disappears along the short set of stairs leading to the deck below. There isn’t time for introductions, and no necessity. Names will get passed around and if or not, teasing identifiers will suffice: babe, honey, handsome. Barba is his most comfortable amidst these quasi-acquaintances: everyone’s polite enough, and there’s anonymity granted in just being along for the ride. </p>
<p>“He seems nice,” Carisi says with all the perfunctory gusto of a fourteen-year-old boy reading his lines for a mandatory school play. He sees a ferry in the distance, much larger than the yacht he’s on but nowhere near as grand. In weathered blue and red, it looks like a child’s bath toy bobbing along. </p>
<p>“I know how it looks--fancy yacht, a bunch of men, <i>some,”</i> Barba pauses, then continues with an implied wink-and-nod, “of us part our prime. It’s not nefarious. It’s a cliche.” </p>
<p>“Nothin’ wrong with a cliche,” Carisi murmurs, his gentle tone suggesting he doesn’t mean to come off as judgmental--far from it. “Says the repressed Catholic. I guess.” </p>
<p>Though it’s the first Barba’s heard of it, he’s not surprised. He remembers imbued in Carisi’s approach as a detective and would-be lawyer a familiar emotional bouquet of sensitivity and empathy and shame, and should have guessed all were grown from the same root cause. He understands all the ways in which shame can swallow a person up, or flay them open. </p>
<p>“Repressed is not what I’d call you,” Barba says. He’s confident in this, because whatever may have tormented Carisi’s sense of self, it never stopped him from showing kindness to others. “You’ve always been… coming into your own.” </p>
<p>The smile that carries across Carisi’s face is as bright as sunlight scattered on the water. He leans back, pleased, like it’s just the thing he’s always wanted to hear, but could never summon the words himself.</p>
<p>He wants the sentiment to be true. That it comes from Barba gets it as close to reality as Carisi might have hoped, short of hearing it from his Priest. </p>
<p>To that end, he doesn’t hem and haw over it, doesn’t thank Barba for saying so. He lets the thing lay there undisturbed so that he might circle back to it later. </p>
<p>“And the house?”</p>
<p>“Ah,” Barba says. “Well.”</p>
<p>There’s been music playing below deck, and suddenly it jumps in volume, then abates. People laugh and shout. </p>
<p>“It’s a beautiful house,” Barba says, and at Carisi’s flat expression, cuts to the chase: “There are about half as many rooms as people. It’s a bit of a free-for-all. Some--yours truly--make alternative plans, and take the late ferry back to Manhattan…” It’s implied, what he means. He says it plainly because--clearly--they could both stand to part ways with implications. “Nothing’s expected.”</p>
<p>Carisi gives a faint nod. “He just knows how to curate a crowd?”</p>
<p>He sounds like he’s heard it all before--from the mouths of grown men ensnaring teenage girls, no doubt. Barba knows he’s heard much the same, and does away with the misconception. </p>
<p>“Nothing so practiced.” </p>
<p>His tone is gentle: he means to be honest without careening over into earnest. For his own, Barba has waded through these waters for decades; he knows the tides and how deep he can venture comfortably. He doesn’t want to make assumptions about Carisi’s comfort levels, but he’s curious how he got quite this far.</p>
<p>“It’s a free ride to a gorgeous house on the beach. A dinner party. A free bed if you don’t mind--or intend on--bunking up.” Barba raises his eyebrows, then his shoulders. “And the ferry, if neither is of interest.”</p>
<p>It’s a simple equation, and part of Carisi knows he can surely throw down a blanket and pillow on a couch or unclaimed stretch of floor if indeed the choices are so slim. But a greater part knows that’s not all he wants.</p>
<p>He starts small, says: “I’d really like to stay the weekend.” </p>
<p>“So… mingle.”</p>
<p>Carisi wrinkles his nose; it’s not a gesture of out-and-out disgust, but more of resignation, with a touch of petulance. All that tension quickly falls away, reorients itself at the corners of his mouth. He wears a barely-there smile, like he’s holding it all back between his teeth and down his throat.</p>
<p>“How about I don’t, and you don’t, and…” </p>
<p>Barba refuses to fill in that particular blank, so Carisi hauls out a verbal shovel and spreads his case: “I really need a few days away, you know? From… everything. Work, and, and work and--everything. Not you,” he adds, like it’s obvious that Barba should be excluded from all the stressors of Carisi’s daily life. “God, no. It’s like a miracle, seeing you.” </p>
<p>The way Carisi says it--the whole sentiment rolling out on the breathy bed of a sigh--it really does sound like one, with all the necessary celestial entanglements. Lit against the bright mid-morning sun and the glittering waters, Carisi even looks the part for delivering it. </p>
<p>Even if the reality is less fanciful, it’s nonetheless <i>praise,</i> and Barba hasn’t lost his taste for that. He squares his shoulders back, reclining just an inch more over the railing. He studies Carisi openly. </p>
<p>“What makes you think I’m not here to mingle?”</p>
<p>“You just said you weren’t,” Carisi says, ever the detective. “But, you do have a bag. Hedging your bets?”</p>
<p>Barba feels something loosen in his chest. A sense of pretense, maybe. </p>
<p>“Always,” he drawls, as impeccably cool as Carisi has ever seen him. Carisi feels his cheeks flare red and warm, though he can’t nail it down as embarrassment. He feels drawn into Barba’s confidence, and it’s like old times: the man holds an orbit like he holds court. If Carisi surrenders himself to it, he knows he isn’t lost, but well-placed.</p>
<p>“Well, you looked pretty guilty a minute ago, so I figure you’ll give me this one.” </p>
<p>Barba’s already sold, but he teases out the result: “That’s incredibly presumptuous, even for you.”</p>
<p>“Consider it?” Carisi asks with a sideways, sheepish smile. He turns his head slightly to take in the view, and it’s as though he’s disappeared. Barba could have shared the whole sordid tale of his abrupt departure from the DA’s office, spilling every slimy secret, and Carisi would have heard none of it. </p>
<p>The sun on his face and the rush of water below render him oblivious to all other stimuli. He is--in this moment--content and relaxed, a combination that now feels alien to his very self, like his body can’t recline into it or otherwise settle. All that energy keeps an internal argument burning, but Carisi doesn’t let slip a word of it. His gaze is set, but his eyes are tired. Barba can’t help but split his own attention with this younger man, who must be seeing something else on the horizon, for as hard as he stares. </p>
<p>“What happened? Why’d you go?”</p>
<p>These things are said, though Carisi feels more like they drift out of him, phantom utterances for a likewise missing part. </p>
<p>“In private,” Barba says, conscious of the bodies shifting up from the deck below to better take in the view. “If you don’t mind.” </p>
<p>The terms are accepted. They stay there, their bodies suggesting ease but their grips matching in their ferocity. There’s something besides the water they’re both desperate not to find themselves hurled into. </p>
<p>“Look at that, huh? You can’t even see the City anymore.” </p>
<p>Carisi’s eyes are too-bright, his words a little frayed at their ends, and he sounds relieved. Barba feels unmistakable pity towards the man, because he knows the sentiment exactly.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Their arrival is marked by more formal introductions as the group--like a military company--storms the beaches towards the stunning modernist home owned by their host. Carisi endears himself to the group by being among the first to simply drop their belongings on the beach and run into the waves, a kind of immediate baptism. Further, he has every confidence in his ability to lift anyone onto his shoulders, which is as big a hit now as it was when he was twelve. </p>
<p>The day is spent on the beach, under the sun, amid male bodies somewhat softened by lives pursuing office-bound success. Everyone delights in the opportunity to cut loose, to shout to one another, to be raucous and wild. This weekend may be a treat to Carisi, but it’s a fixture for the others: professional types who figure <i>living</i> into the calculus of their lives. It’s a thing they need, and thus a thing they do. </p>
<p>For Carisi--perhaps for several reasons yet--this doesn’t yet add up. </p>
<p>Barba remains watchful partly out of curiosity--will Carisi recognize cause in another man’s precise proximity?--but quickly learns he’s not the only one. Carisi likewise makes eyes at him, seeking him out where Barba unfurls a blanket and reads behind sunglasses on the beach. There are broad, toothy smiles for all these new friends, but something softer, more genuine, for Barba.</p>
<p>Carisi disappears for part of the afternoon on a collective errand, making fast friends with the group, bonding only as one can in grocery store isles.</p>
<p>The day stretches too thin for their postponed conversation. Dinner, too, is a raucous affair, over-loud with music and talking, held under a blue-and-pink streaked sky as the sun sets well beyond them. Carisi avails himself to the kitchen, where he puts his talents to use. Barba watches him go, but stays where he is, seated comfortably at a long and crowded table. It’s fun enough to sink into the moment with a drink in hand, to enjoy thoughtlessness for a while. </p>
<p>Barba realizes he’s missed the last ferry back, and for all he’s had to drink doesn’t think he’d have made it off the docks, anyway. </p>
<p>The atmosphere buzzes with warmth and lightness. People are happy, Carisi cannot keep the grin off his face for that fact alone. It is, Barba supposes, a novel thing.</p>
<p>Barba gathers that, due to a question-and-answer game over dinner, no one knows that Carisi is a cop. <i>What was your last big accomplishment?</i> was answered resolutely as passing the bar exam, which earned Carisi a round of applause he didn’t choose to interrupt. </p>
<p>By Barba’s count, that was almost three years ago.</p>
<p>The music continues and becomes something like a dance party as drinks are lifted from the table and swayed with out onto the porch. Barba helps clear the table with a few other guests, but soon it’s just him and Carisi, moving slowly around the table and one another. </p>
<p>“They’re all out on the porch and down the beach,” Barba says. “You should join them now--I assume no one will be up before noon tomorrow.” </p>
<p>“I want to be,” Carisi says while stifling a yawn that is either entirely genuine or frighteningly convincing for being a fake. </p>
<p>They part ways, somehow. Barba to compliment their host on dinner, Carisi to return a lost phone he finds between the couch cushions that’s been buzzing for the past twenty minutes. They find one another again in a seafoam-green guest room, where Barba’s already showered and changed, and Carisi is red-faced for having passed a vocally-occupied room at the start of the hall. </p>
<p>Seeing Barba--for whom sweatpants and a t-shirt might as well be unabashed nudity--Carisi starts to babble.</p>
<p>“Sorry. Is this okay? Really? Because I didn’t really let you--” </p>
<p>“It’s fine,” Barba says haltingly, as if he means to add Carisi’s name, but doubts both the professional bent of the usage of his surname and the familiarity of a nickname. “Really.”</p>
<p>Barba says this as he thinks, <i>We don’t have to.</i> They can each take a separate room, and leave two someone elses to figure themselves out. But the prevailing necessity in his mind is <i>comfort,</i> and somehow, he thinks this is the best way each can attain some level of it. Barba can’t shake Carisi’s forlorn expression from his mind, and though he hasn’t seen it since, he’s sure Carisi has been tenderly nursing it all the while. </p>
<p>The man is terribly alone. </p>
<p>Carisi nods and disappears with his wash bag clutched in both hands. He brushes for the full two minutes, and then an extra three, thinking all the while that his request and all it implies is another colossal error on his part. Another in a string of poor decisions, thoughtlessly and recklessly made, for which he will spend the rest of his life nurturing a constant, thrumming, bleeding regret. </p>
<p>On the whole the day feels transitional; it was a lot of <i>going</i> and <i>getting</i> to places, a lot of time spent in the surf, his toes barely gripping onto land while his body bobbed around in the waves. Only now, at the prospect of settling into bed with a former colleague and lost friend, does Carisi get the sense he’s arrived.</p>
<p>All the same, he thinks about just making due with the chair, or situating a pallet on the floor, because he gets the distinct impression he’s packed for the beach but arrived on the moon. </p>
<p>Barba is unknown terrain under a slate-grey duvet, dark head on a bright white pillow, sinking into starlight. When Carisi had first entered the room, Barba was lying atop the bed, bare feet crossed at the ankle, light eyes glued to a page in his book. Distractedly, Carisi thinks he hasn’t gotten very far. </p>
<p>Now, he’s curled in on himself, one tanned arm under his pillow, the other resting over his chest. The tips of his fingers are only <i>just</i> crossing the invisible line down the middle of the bed. This is neither an oversight nor a taunt. </p>
<p>Carisi doesn’t dare to hope, but--</p>
<p>“I can’t sleep with you looming over me.” </p>
<p>--Barba makes the invitation, however facetiously.</p>
<p>Carisi is very aware of his body as he draws back the covers enough to sink in. He can feel the sunburn spread slowly over the skin of his shoulders, his nose, his ears, hear its steady crawl. His limbs feel over-long and he is convinced he somehow won’t fit, that one wrong move will rocket Barba out of his side of the bed, and he’ll be as alone as he feared, and wholly deserving of it.</p>
<p>Barba sees a different story: pale slopes of skin drawn over taunt muscle. A gentle body gripped by restraint, and exhausted for it. An exuberant man who has re-wired himself to want slowly, carefully.</p>
<p>They fall asleep to the thrum of music and muffled voices drifting in from outside, and one another’s own quiet breathing.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>When Barba wakes, Carisi is sitting up in bed, staring out the window. A soft, steady, sweeping sound and the greyness of the room tell Barba’s it’s raining. The smell comes after; he’s a New Yorker, and for his own good he’s trained himself out of smelling the rain in the city. </p>
<p>It’s different here: invigorating and strange, like the scent isn’t roiling up from the earth but instead rolling in on nearby waves. It’s all a part of a single piece, the ocean and the sky, trading in shape and venue. </p>
<p>“Sorry,” Barba says, absently, about the weather. His voice is rendered soft with sleep, a simple and reoccurring fact about himself he’ll never appreciate on its own merits. It makes him sound sweet, young, and unsure. He’s very much no longer at least two of those things. </p>
<p>Carisi shakes his head. “It’s nice.”</p>
<p>It doesn’t last--the rain or the silence. </p>
<p>Barba fully expects Carisi to disappear into the day he so wanted for himself, which he does, though not without a quasi-invitation. </p>
<p>“I’m going down to the beach,” he says. He’s gone and dressed himself in square-cut swim shorts not wholly unlike those outfitting the parade of thighs on the boat ride over. A loose grey t-shirt and open-zip hoodie complete the look, as well as uncombed hair and a tentative smile. Carisi doesn’t look like Barba’s ever seen him, and given his UC work, he’s been provided enough options. But the biggest change is that his hip isn’t canted towards the weight of a badge, and he seems lighter for it. </p>
<p>“Don’t drown,” Barba says. He’s still under the covers, though not because he intends to go back to sleep. They’ve just shared as small a space as a bed; if he starts milling about, overlapping himself into Carisi’s morning routine, he thinks he’ll be done in by the fantasy. He only re-enters the world when Carisi leaves his.</p>
<p>Barba’s own morning regimen is throttled when he discovers their host doesn’t have a coffee maker. </p>
<p>The trajectory of his day is thereby decided, and Barba thinks he spies Carisi when he leaves the house to start towards a strip of restaurants, cafes, and boutiques, but he can’t be sure. It’s a stretch of pale back and arms cutting through the water; it could be anyone out there, swimming with a ferocity that might take him clear across the Atlantic.</p>
<p>It’s still early, with most storefronts closed and sidewalks empty. It’s so quietly thrilling to walk a public street in absolute solitude that Barba walks past the cafe he was seeking--just opening, now--and does a lap around the three-block stretch of shops. He circles back, orders and drinks a coffee on the cafe’s patio, and watches the space slowly come alive. He sees what he suspects are proper New Yorkers flooding in for long weekends or summer holidays, then pulling back as sure as the tide. He gets two coffees to go, one with plenty of milk and sugar, like he remembers Carisi takes it. </p>
<p>Perhaps it’s not the best thing to cap off a swim with, but Carisi’s eyes light up when Barba offers him the cup, and he savors the first sip. </p>
<p>He’d been lying on his back when Barba approached, chest heaving up and down as he swallowed breaths of giddy exhaustion. </p>
<p>They sit together, Carisi half-naked and coated in sand, and Barba, smartly dressed and sitting discreetly atop Carisi’s discarded hoodie because his cognac-colored chinos deserve better than that. The sun lifts from the lingering stretch of clouds, drying the beach and warming their skin in short order.</p>
<p>They talk. First about the ocean view, then the ever-improving weather, and generally the simplest, most present things at their disposal. The sentiments are half-formed but shared fully. </p>
<p>More people are drawn to the beach, and dogs, criss-crossing paths and skirting through the waves. If they were inching towards Barba addressing Carisi’s question--that looming, heavy burden Barba escaped through sheer avoidance of anyone with any tangential knowledge of it--they aren’t anymore. The space feels too crowded for that.</p>
<p>“I can’t get over the beard,” Carisi blurts out, enchanted by this tangible thing not two feet away from him. </p>
<p>“Is it too dark?” Barba asks this--and regrets asking--at once. He realizes it sounds like he’s been dying to know, but hasn’t had anyone around to ask. It’s an admission he hadn’t planned on making: that he hadn’t carried many people from his old life into this new one, and he regrets it. </p>
<p>“I like it,” Carisi clarifies. “It exudes real--and I’m borrowing a colloquial phrase--zaddy energy.”</p>
<p>Barba hangs his head a moment, raises it, then stands. </p>
<p>“Is the water cold? I’m going to walk into the ocean.” </p>
<p>Carisi is grinning as he stands to join him, pausing only slightly to gather their empty coffee cups and shelve them neatly, one into the other. They start to walk the beach: a little in search of new scenery, but more to the point that they neither have to lower or raise their voices amid a growing crowd. </p>
<p>They become <i>Rafael</i> and <i>Sonny</i> at some point, the names fitting into one another’s mouths in the shape of a smile. It’s absurd if they think about it, so they don’t. </p>
<p>It feels necessary and--strangely--prophetic that a wayward Carisi should encounter a version of Barba who, since last they spoke, careened himself out of his station and towards the unknown. Who better to talk of all manner of necessary changes than the man who uprooted his career to make a few of his own? All the same, Carisi can’t help but see Barba in shades that best suited him: a man in control, wrapped up in self-assurance as pronounced as the paisley windsor knot at his throat. Even his supposed missteps are granted an air of certitude. </p>
<p>Barba--who wants a moment longer in his disguise as an affable, genuine human being who does not wildly abdicate his responsibilities--asks about Carisi’s career. It’s a simple, totally innocuous, <i>Have you made the jump, yet?</i> </p>
<p>But for hearing it, Carisi wishes he still had the last dregs of his coffee to stall with, or an explosion on the horizon to point to, or a gaping sinkhole to envelope the earth just below his feet. Something to avoid all the avoiding they both were doing.</p>
<p>In his answer, Carisi imagines all the excuses he makes to himself, then drops them from its telling to Barba. Without a preamble, he admits work is a sore spot.</p>
<p>“No. Going anywhere seems as much of a threat as an opportunity. Which--I know what that sounds like. But I’m serious. It’s not been… great.” </p>
<p>“Tell me.” </p>
<p>It’s different from asking <i>How?</i> There’s no justification to be made. Barba believes him outright. He only wants the facts as Carisi knows them. And if qualifiers are facts, he wants those just as well. </p>
<p>It all comes pouring out: how Carisi doesn’t like not knowing where the hours go when he gets home. How it feels sometimes like he's drowning. How paperwork is the best part of his day, because at least there’s some tangible product of his time. How angry he is at himself for not being able to shoulder others' grief and pain, when none of it touches him, not really. How he doesn't even think about becoming a lawyer anymore, that he can’t see that far into the future.</p>
<p>"A year?” Barba asks, and doesn’t like that Carisi almost smiles at that, wistful. “Two?"</p>
<p>"At all."</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Barba says--another phrase Carisi isn’t expecting to hear, somehow. He shoves his hands into his pockets, as if the notion chills him. The length of his arms is tanned and taut while drawn against the bright white of his polo--a thing Carisi notices and immediately feels like a sleeze for doing so. </p>
<p>Because Barba lends him a thoughtful, nuanced helping of sympathy: “It’s… a lot, to contend with losing hold of something you’re passionate about.”</p>
<p>Carisi tilts his head back; if he’s going to stop staring, a fathomless blue sky is Barba’s only competition. </p>
<p>With the fervor of a man who knows an intimate piece of what he’s talking about, Barba continues, “Your hangup is in your own capacity for pain. Believe me, please, when I tell you this--I don't mean the work. What you're feeling isn't heartache or sympathy or righteous anger. It isn’t <i>just</i> those things.” Barba catches Carisi grimacing, and knows they understand one another. “It just starts to all feel the same, eventually. Doesn’t it?”</p>
<p>Carisi sees a bench just ahead of them, drawn back on a grassy stretch before the beach juts out to a point. He thinks less about having a seat and more about crawling under the structure. </p>
<p>He kind of loves that Barba can read him so well. He hates that it’s this.</p>
<p>“Burnout doesn’t feel like a good enough reason to stop helping people.” </p>
<p>“I don’t think that’s something you could stop doing if you tried.” Barba says this lightly, but an undercurrent of dispiritedness breathes through his words like a dialect, accenting each with new meaning. “But if it’s this existential battle between what you want and what others want, and everything you’re doing is because you can’t let it go undone--that is not sustainable.”</p>
<p>The bench is well-placed because the view it’s centered for is stunning. It’s nothing but sky, sky, sky, and water spilled out to meet it. The scene is at once overwhelming in its scope and depth and color, and yet hauntingly intimate. There is no one but them positioned at this narrow outcropping of gritty terrain to take in this moment exactly as it appears. Carisi’s thoughts short circuit around the fact that, if not for the topic of discussion, this would qualify as romantic.</p>
<p>(He thinks tangentially of a Homicide case he worked early in his career--double murder at a lavish wedding venue--and decides today is <i>kinda like that.</i>)  </p>
<p>“You know, I first started classes because I thought--after bouncin’ around five boroughs--I must have been a shitty cop?” He can smile about that now, because he knows better. “But then, I liked it. The history and material and the way you gotta craft an argument. An’ I saw you in court and it was like… if I could be half the lawyer you were, I’d be set. If I could <i>do that,</i> I could be proud of myself.”</p>
<p>Carisi flushes pink and hopes Barba will accept a very fast-spreading sunburn. Following that line too closely brings Carisi to a very intimate truth: there’s a lot about Barba Carisi wants to emulate.</p>
<p>“You have a lot to be proud of.” Barba says this with the finality of a closing argument. He doesn’t specify what he means, and doesn’t think by Carisi’s soft smile that any clarification is needed. </p>
<p>But, maybe--a little context. </p>
<p>“Do you know why I left the DA’s office?”</p>
<p>Carisi’s already waded into the darkest waters of his private misery; it’s just as well Barba follows suit.</p>
<p>“You know that I don’t,” Carisi says, his voice a murmur. He thinks--incorrectly--if he lowers his voice, Barba won’t be able to hear the palpable hurt. “Because you didn’t call or text or see any of us.”</p>
<p>“What did you hear.”</p>
<p>Carisi’s sharp inhale of breath tells Barba’s it’s an ugly thing he’d rather not repeat.</p>
<p>“That you went against Jack McCoy on something, and he gave you the choice to quit or be fired, but it wasn’t really a choice.” </p>
<p>It was a cold and simple explanation, the kind that pingponged throughout the halls of 1 Hogan Place, fitting into tight corners to be whispered about. </p>
<p>“Please tell me that’s not the truth.”</p>
<p>“Not the whole truth,” Barba says. </p>
<p>He realizes this will be the tale’s first official telling, that he’s only ever given pieces of it before, portioning out flattened details designed not to invite questions. He hasn’t felt inclined by any one person’s presence to give them more--until now.</p>
<p>“I gave an ultimatum to Jack. He wasn’t going to budge on an indictment, saying it wasn’t his decision, not really. I asked facetiously what decisions he <i>could</i> make.” Barba stops there, always a little grimly impressed--never surprised--by his own brazen invitation for those things that are never in his favor. “He gave one. <i>I can issue suspensions.</i> I told him, ‘That’s out of your hands, too.’ And I quit.” </p>
<p>Quietly, Barba sinks into the kind of detail he hasn’t previously shared: That, at seven in the evening when he was packing his office, Jack came in. That Jack asked if Barba had reconsidered his decision. That Barba had answered with the last words he suspected he’d ever say to Jack McCoy: <i>I didn’t think we made those around here.</i></p>
<p>Beside him, he can hear that Carisi’s all but stopped breathing, like he can place himself in the scene Barba’s described, and his impulse is to await that untimely end. </p>
<p>“It felt like the biggest mistake of my life,” Barba admits. Not just leaving his position, but doing so in defeat. </p>
<p>To Carisi’s great relief, Barba amends: “...For about a month. But I left the city. Came back. Did some pro-bono advocacy work, consulting, research…” The corners of his mouth pull back gently towards some semblance of a smile. “I like the urgency, I like the fact that I don’t have to make a whole other slew of internal calculations on top of the legal ones. It’s just the work.” </p>
<p>He watches Carisi’s expression, studies how his statements land and are taken in. Carisi is nodding in slight, tight bursts, like he’s rushing out to collect every word and draw it back in. </p>
<p>“Maybe that’s cowardly. Or a copout. Maybe I’ll find my way back to it. Maybe all I needed was a break, but I needed it a little too badly. But--I’m not unhappy.” </p>
<p>He shrugs. It’s not so profound a thing to say, he thinks, except Carisi’s expression slackens for hearing it, like the words, said just so, generate their own otherworldly music. Barba has imparted celestial wisdom, and Carisi alone is chosen as its recipient. Barba describing himself as not without purpose is a lifeline Carisi isn’t expecting to be thrown, but now he wants nothing but to be closer to its central truth. He wants to give in and align himself with this radical acceptance. </p>
<p>“What case was it?”</p>
<p>Barba doesn’t so much as blink. “DV. Repeat offender. Never charged.”</p>
<p>“A cop.” </p>
<p>Carisi sinks slowly back to earth. But--Barba meets him there with a knowing, tired smile. </p>
<p>Barba remembers how hopeless he felt trying to push the case, how ashamed he was of his passion because of where it came from. He tries to be merciful with himself, now, when he speaks of it.</p>
<p>“I have my doubts. In the moment I thought I was standing my ground, but I ceded all of it.” Barba stops. This isn’t the gentle touch he had in mind; it’s how he feels, every complicated turn of it.</p>
<p>“No, I want to hear it.”</p>
<p><i>You need to,</i> Barba thinks, because he can’t help but see all the ways in which Carisi’s sinking despair is so very much like his own. Except for Carisi, there may be a failsafe. </p>
<p>“It was the case, and it wasn’t. It was confronting abusers, and being made to feel as helpless as the victim. It was cops, and whether or not I was complicit if I dropped this. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to Liv about it. I felt ashamed, and like I’d let everyone down regardless of what I did.”</p>
<p>Carisi sits with that. He’d thought seeing Barba would bring all those feelings back to the surface, every detail from that awful first week and the months that followed--that constant, drumming frustration and sadness that comes with being unceremoniously discarded from another person’s world--but instead, Carisi finds he can’t <i>find</i> any of it. He can’t access those old resentments; he’s always known he’d be happier dismissing them. </p>
<p>“With the radio silence, it kind of felt the other way around.” </p>
<p>“I just didn’t know how to explain it,” Barba says. <i>Giving up.</i> “Other than the selfish reason: because deep down, beyond everything, I wanted to leave.” He turns slightly, further cutting into the distance between them on the bench. This much, he knows, he needs to look Carisi in the eye for. </p>
<p>“But, you don’t need me telling you the work is difficult. Not everyone can do it, or do it forever.”</p>
<p>Carisi feels his face burn red. He knows what Barba is getting at, but he goes right instead of left, and deflects: “Or at all. I mean, the guy who came in wasn’t… great. Or the two after that.”</p>
<p>That fact alone kept the wound perpetually open; every time their ADA used all their work and proof to secure only a plea deal, Carisi was reminded of what they’d lost, and how he simply did not know why.</p>
<p>“I regret how I left,” Barba says by way of agreement. But he doesn’t abandon all hope for the thing he wants Carisi to recognize in their situations. Different as they may be, Barba feels they are destined to collide: “I should have sat with it, worked out why I wanted to leave, and then done the work of setting the office up for success. I should have helped get <i>you</i> there.” </p>
<p>Carisi feels the blood rush to his cheeks. “Oh, jeez, I don’t--”</p>
<p>“You could be an ADA,” Barba says--not softly, like Carisi remembers him asking on more than one occasion when the job proved ugly and limited--but like he means to champion the thought into existence. His words grip Carisi by the shoulders where Barba minds his own, wanting to drive his point on its own merits. “You’re smart. You’re a hard worker. You have good instincts. You can do it.”</p>
<p>Carisi’s doubt gets the better of him, and under the weight of everything it peters out that last gasp of uncertainty: “I don’t think that I can, though.” </p>
<p>Barba is undeterred. </p>
<p>“In the four years we worked together, there was never a second you weren’t already trying.” </p>
<p>Barba settles his hand on Carisi’s forearm where he has it resting over the back of the bench. It’s a gentle gesture, but the opposite is also true: it sparks Carisi’s attention, and at once he meets Barba’s gaze where the other man had been searching for him. Now caught, Carisi is held by more rapturous proclamations. </p>
<p>Barba, unmoved by Carisi’s unfounded hesitancy, says this: “I think you feel a great deal of loyalty to the work you’re doing now, and the people you’re doing it with. And I think if this weekend is any indication, you’d sooner practice avoidance and pretend it isn’t denial.”</p>
<p>He watches that one meet Carisi like an argument, but settle slowly as an undeniable truth.</p>
<p>Softly, Barba continues: “Liv would understand. Maybe just be honest about it. I suppose that’s the advice I wish I’d given myself.” </p>
<p>There’s humility in his voice, his face. Then it softens into peace. Barba stares out at the stretch of beach ahead of them, to the calm waters, and is content. Carisi wants that. He wants it like he wants the skill set and confidence and drive to <i>do</i> the things he wants. </p>
<p>And--he wants Barba.</p>
<p>“Sorry, can we go back a step, to my good instincts?”</p>
<p>His heart is pounding in his chest, a thrumming he’s certain Barba can hear over the steady roar and slap of waves. He doesn’t care; he does what feels inherent in him to do, what this moment was built for. An open-hearted conversation with a man he’s long admired, a man whose gaze on him has changed, a man who invites closeness and seeks it out, a man for whom that cannot be a mistake. </p>
<p>Carisi kisses Barba. It isn’t chaste or timid, because at that first taste, Carisi realizes his hunger is bottomless, and Barba is open to him searching. Carisi doesn’t pull away so much as he deflates, full of something he’d wanted, shocked that he’d gone and taken it. His face draws left while Barba goes right, and they rest a moment, cheek-to-cheek. The tickle of Barba’s beard--never a part of any half-baked fantasy--imbues Carisi with an altered sense of reality: that he could have something great, <i>and more.</i></p>
<p>“That was very smooth,” Barba says, a little surprised, and very much delighted. Carisi laughs brightly and only then do they pull away so that Barba can see the joy written into the man’s features and think, <i>finally.</i></p>
<p>“Do you want to keep walking, or go back to the house?”</p>
<p>“We can walk,” Carisi says. “...back to the house.”</p>
<p>“Two for two,” Barba smirks, and finds himself being kissed again, this time with an indelible sweetness. </p>
<p>They do leave the bench, but they don’t go anywhere--not really. They continue talking in low, warm tones. Carisi lets himself imagine he can do all the things Barba believes him ready for, and Barisi takes a surreal delight in planning a career with all the insights he’s gained. Somewhere amidst a tentative lateral move between burroughs--it’s never a bad move to see what’s out there, Barba says--Carisi reaches for Barba’s hand, takes it, and wields it like a prize. This isn’t the city, where if seen they might be expected to explain more than they can just yet; they don’t need to find privacy. Backed against an open ocean, they already have it. </p>
<p>Barba laughs at the absurdity of all this, and tries to explain: he thought his old life was gone. He didn’t realize how much he still ached for some of its rougher edges. </p>
<p>The compliment is taken as intended, and Carisi admits--because why not, now?--that he always had a <i>thing</i> for Barba.</p>
<p>“I’m sure you noticed. I’m, uh, told it was a little… obvious. Uh, glaring? Might have been the word. I hope it didn’t bother you.” </p>
<p>Never having lost his touch for a coolly delivered non-answer, Barba says he recognized the adoration before he was able to appreciate it. He acknowledges he’d never have chanced anything while at the DA’s office; he took his job, his status, himself too seriously. He’d have never dated a colleague. </p>
<p>“Now, though.” Barba glances sidelong and finds Carisi’s attention readily on him. That feeling in his chest is back--bright and blooming in reds, pinks, purples. “I decided on this when I saw you yesterday.”</p>
<p><i>Because,</i> he thinks, but realizes if he says his full piece, it will necessitate a reply, and Carisi isn’t on sure enough ground to deliver one yet, <i>Everything fits. The man you are, drawn out and away from the position you hold, is perfect.</i></p>
<p>There’s a profound brightness in Carisi’s eyes, like he’s sold a dozen times over for <i>I decided on you.</i> Like the glittering, fractured white light dancing atop the waves, it’s brighter than his grey-blue eyes should fathomly hold. And at the same moment, both men realize that the difference can be chalked up to gathering tears.</p>
<p>Carisi rears back and away, twisting right, peeling away from Barba’s side for the first time all morning. He thrusts his palms into his eye sockets and obliterates whatever’s there that might ruin him--or show, already, how ruined he is. </p>
<p>“Holy shit, sorry. I’m sorry. This is--weird.” </p>
<p>His face feels hot and his breath follows. His mind starts to race and the excuses build up: he’d wanted this weekend to clear his head, to concentrate on himself and sort out his own shit. He hadn’t expected Barba swanning in with all manner of promises and proclamations. And--</p>
<p>And the excuses stop there. He’d expected a tsunami, but it’s little more than a leaky faucet. He settles himself with a few deep breaths. The new breed of overwhelmed he feels has these veins: with relief, excitement, awe. And there’s not one of them he regrets getting even a taste of.</p>
<p>He glances back and finds Barba waiting patiently, his gentle expression nothing short of restorative. A man holding a flip-flop in each hand should hardly inspire confidence, but Carisi feels a swell of his rise through his chest, higher, until his purse-lipped facade breaks with a goofy, sideways smile. </p>
<p>It’s sincere, and no less so than the harried moment that preceded it. </p>
<p>Barba sees a man on the edge and in some ways, sees himself. He wants to be close and stand as both pillar and battlement. He wants to help Carisi find a satisfactory existence before he slips out of the cracks in his surroundings. These things are simple, and Barba ticks them off one by one, certain in his intentions. </p>
<p>And, simpler too, are the thoughts that follow: He wants to love and support this man. He wants for that to be wanted of him. These notions seem at once too-deep and far-reaching to be acknowledged after only a chance reunion, but he can move his lips to them, and finds he is not shocked by the taste. </p>
<p>But if Barba’s learned anything in the past year, it’s to mind his words, and lead by a surer hand. </p>
<p>“If I came on a little strong--”</p>
<p>“Rafael, no. It’s not that.”</p>
<p>“Heatstroke, then? We’re in agreement?”</p>
<p>Carisi shakes his head. They’ve been strikingly, bewilderingly honest thus far--why diverge from the path?</p>
<p>“It was a nice thing you said, and I got a little verklempt.” </p>
<p>Carisi turns his palms up as if to offer himself up as only this: pale limbs sticking every-which-way out of a loose t-shirt and red little trunks. Dirty blonde hair that’s going prematurely grey at the temples. Blue eyes, pink lips, and every inch of him buzzing with unbridled earnestness. Closeted because it somehow seemed the polite thing to do. Gripped so tightly by a sense of duty that he’s lost all sense of self. </p>
<p>He is a man who counts his life’s delays as shortcomings, where Barba sees only the vastness of his potential.</p>
<p>“Well, strap in,” Barba’s mouth twists in anticipation. “Because I meant it.”</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>When they arrive back at the house it’s early afternoon, and the other guests are just pouring themselves out of bed and into the light of day. </p>
<p>Between Barba and Carisi, it is determined in silent agreement: they don’t want to feverishly have one another in a stranger’s home. There’s enough to share in one another’s quiet company, meeting again after such desolate silence. There’s enough, too, to savour between helpings.</p>
<p>Barba gives Carisi some space, telling him to <i>“Go play with the other boys”</i> when someone proposes a game of beach volleyball.</p>
<p>In hanging back he’s approached by Jonathan, who--true to form--smells a story.</p>
<p>“You two seem awfully friendly.” </p>
<p>His tone suggests he knows precisely what’s gone on, and though Barba knows that’s only an affectation, he doesn’t bristle at the idea of being so easily seen. He thinks that’s something else he left behind in the DA’s office: all the ways in which he excused his own secrecy for self-seriousness, and otherwise exhausted his personality in court as the long and short of himself. He’s since recovered smaller, more delicate parts of himself, and doesn’t </p>
<p>“He’s a friend I haven’t seen in a while.” </p>
<p>Jonathan wrinkles his nose; he wants either a dishy or cagey response. There’s nothing to glean from honesty.</p>
<p>“Wish I had a friend who was 6’2”.” </p>
<p>“You have a husband of twenty years.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but he’s 5’7”.” Jonathan’s husband isn’t here. As all of their guests know in astounding detail, they share a beloved Springer Spaniel, Camille, who can’t be left alone for more than an evening. It’s just as well; throwing parties, dancing all night, nursing a hangover for the next week is Jonathan’s thing, not David’s. Were David here--all 5’7” of him--he’d have chastised his partner for prodding without end into another man’s private affairs. </p>
<p>Alone, Jonathan has carte blanche to ask all the invasive questions he pleases.</p>
<p>“Very interesting that you’d equate your <i>friend</i> with my <i>husband.</i> Planning to make a move?”</p>
<p>Barba purses his lips as if to consider it. </p>
<p>“Not this weekend,” he decides, and Jonathan laughs. He won’t get anything else today, he suspects, though he expects to be fully vindicated by next summer.</p>
<p>“Fuck you for scoring that tall, beautiful boy.” </p>
<p>“You’re a lovely host, Jonathan.” </p>
<p>“That tall, beautiful boy who keeps doing my dishes.”</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>It’s mid-afternoon before Carisi returns to him, clear-eyed and smiling. He seems to have reconciled with himself the terms of a quiet bargain: it’s been a rough year. It’s not wholly impossible that things might be looking up. Maybe Barba’s not a sure thing, but to take a chance on a good thing is better odds than he’s seen in some time.</p>
<p>Carisi finds Barba on the porch, his body languid in a deck chair, legs stretched out and mostly bare, a paperback holding his attention. He’s alone, though Carisi doesn’t know what--if anything--would have stopped him from dropping down alongside him and doing away with all pretense of propriety.</p>
<p>He smells like sunscreen and sweat, and there’s sand in his hair that gets between the pages of Barba’s book. </p>
<p>“Welcome back,” Barba murmurs, and is surprised when Carisi initiates a quick kiss. “Have fun?”</p>
<p>“We played volleyball.”</p>
<p>“Were you shirts or skins?”</p>
<p>“You must be unfamiliar with the rules, because we were all skins.”</p>
<p>“A terrible oversight on my part.”</p>
<p>“We wore bandanas,” Carisi explains, the smile on his face growing ever more assured. He fishes the red square of cloth from the pocket of his swim shorts and ties it loosely around his neck, knotted with the two tails hanging at the front. </p>
<p>“It was girl scout,” he smirks, then twists the accessory around to showcase the wide triangle of fabric, “vs. wild west.” </p>
<p>The book gets closed, sand and all. </p>
<p>“Well I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask--” </p>
<p>The next kiss is deeper, more confident. It comes with the added bonus of Carisi breaking into giddy laughter halfway through, the smooth fronts of his teeth grazing Barba’s cheek before he tucks back in for a final taste. Initially Barba mistakes it for youthful exuberance but realizes instead it’s something else entirely: joy, fully realized. It’s affirmation. It’s a hard left turn Carisi gamely wants to take. </p>
<p>The things Barba wanted to say--but didn’t--are what he feels he’s now being asked for. </p>
<p>“Yee-haw.” </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The day seems to stretch for an eternity until--finally--the first signs of dusk blanket over the scene in soft purple hues.  </p>
<p>The group shares beers out on the beach, everyone dulled by the warmth and saturated sunlight of the day. They’re all scattered amidst the sand, some on beach towels, a few claiming canvas-backed folding chairs. Carisi sits himself down in a folding red-and-white striped chair next to Barba, but after volunteering to venture back into the house for more beers, loses his station to a man who claims a crab scuttled over his hand.</p>
<p>“I had to find higher ground. Sorry.”</p>
<p>But the sunset still carries with it all the fervor and light of the day, bridged across the sky like a fantastic shattering of glass. And Carisi’s good mood is likewise undeterred. </p>
<p>“Don’t sweat it,” he says, and settles into a place of honor: in the sand, his shoulders brushing against Barba’s bare legs, first by accident, then on purpose.</p>
<p>It’s another hour of lounging, swapping gossip and stories, drinking, and enjoying the thrill of intimate proximity he has with Barba before Carisi excuses himself (and a team of brave volunteers) to the house to helm the dinner prep.</p>
<p>Dinner is a spread of sticky-sweet barbeque, speared grilled vegetables, and margaritas served under strings of lights across the porch. The bulbs hang like too-bright stars just overhead, and their light fractures as the night breaks open with music, drinks, and laughter. </p>
<p>It’s a Saturday night at the end of summer, and every beach house down the stretch of peninsula is being held in celebratory defiance of a sure-to-come autumn. There’s a hint of it in the air already, but no one draws on a sweater; they take warmth in other ways. The alcohol flows freely, bodies compress in dance or conversation--either as a means to an end. </p>
<p>Once again, Barba and Carisi make a swift departure. It isn’t the promise of a new bright and early morning Carisi is looking forward to, so much, as the slinking dark of night.</p>
<p>The first night they didn’t touch; each man held the line. Tonight, there isn’t a moment of hesitation: they’re pressed close, exploring one another’s bodies, touching all the skin that bares itself.</p>
<p>Carisi feels himself being watched: Barba’s gaze is anchored and studious, like he expects to witness something very specific. Carisi tries to follow and discern that could possibly be so important--did he need to find it, too?--and in his desperation meets Barba’s eyes, hoping the other man will just <i>tell him.</i></p>
<p>When he sees what he supposes is likewise seen--a man so vulnerable and wanting and open, a man for whom there isn’t any moment in all of existence before <i>this moment</i> that cannot be overtaken--Carisi thinks he gets his meaning.</p>
<p>He cups his hand to Barba’s cheek, passes it slowly over the striking beard, thumbs the soft expanse of the man’s bottom lip and thinks it’s a more intimate thing, even, than having kissed. </p>
<p>“Do you want--”</p>
<p>“Just--hold me?”</p>
<p>Carisi worries he’s shoveling forth a disappointment after the day’s flirtations. But all his doubts are again cast aside when Barba’s heavy arms encircle him, and a leg is hooked over the backs of Carisi’s knees just to drive the point home, and startle out a laugh. </p>
<p>The position holds, as if Barba knows he’s on the front lines and manning a feature that cannot be lost. For a time they just speak in gentle affirmations--<i>this is nice</i>--and when they don’t, Carisi has to peak open an eye to make certain it’s still Rafael Barba who’s taken him to bed. He thinks if he lets himself forget, the spell will be broken.</p>
<p>“I’m not who I was a year ago,” Barba says softly. It gnaws at the back of his mind: that his passions are elsewhere, and Carisi might be disappointed by their misplacement. </p>
<p>“Tell you the truth, Counselor,” Carisi murmurs into the sloping hollow of a collarbone, “That sounds pretty aspirational right now.”</p>
<p>It’s a whirlwind of a night. Carisi expected they’d talk--endlessly, feverishly--about every little thing they’d once left unsaid. But the security of a shared embrace of arms and fingers, a hitched leg, a buried nose, seems to answer for everything. </p>
<p>Pressed against the man’s chest, Carisi feels he can still see the sun for closing his eyes. </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>When they inevitably sleep in, it’s not for lack of trying. But Carisi wakes a few times, realizes he’s got Barba’s arm around his middle, or they’re sharing the same pillow, and cannot bear to disturb the scene. So he sinks back into it--gladly--and battles back that innate drive to rise early and purposefully on a Sunday morning.</p>
<p>When they do stir on this, the last day at the house, amid friendly, sundrenched strangers, Carisi cooks breakfast. He cooks many breakfasts: a frittata, a massive pile of bacon, waffles, a brunch torte, and drawn from the oven just as the plates are being cleared is a coffee cake with a cinnamon crumb topping. It’s everything drawn from unruly grocery-isle conversations, taken by Carisi as a mandate rather than mere suggestion. </p>
<p>By the hour any of it is consumed, it’s hailed as the brunch to end all brunches, a feast befitting the end of the summer season, and toasted a half-dozen times over with boozy hurrahs. Carisi is pink-faced and beaming through it all.</p>
<p>“I’m starting to think you just really enjoy doing dishes,” Barba says when, again, they are the last two cleaning up. Carisi’s t-shirt today is a light blue, and what Barba likes best is that he saw the other man roll out of bed and tug it on.</p>
<p>“Care to test that theory?”</p>
<p>Barba feels a smart little smile looming over him, like Carisi knows precisely what he wants to hear.</p>
<p>“You want to cook for me?”</p>
<p>“You want to ask me to?”</p>
<p>Barba smirks, deems the clean-up effort well or well-enough, and sidesteps the counter to retrieve his coffee cup. Someone--Carisi, he presumes--bought a cheap french press and expensive coffee, so Barba wasn’t again relegated to making a trip to the nearest cafe.</p>
<p>Barba walks leisurely into the sunporch, and isn’t surprised when the faucet stops and Carisi follows. There’s a bloom of sunlight spreading over the floor, and a daybed done up in a bright white linen and littered with a rainbow of macrame-adorned throw pillows. Either man could have slept here rather comfortably that first night; Barba is all too pleased neither did.</p>
<p>They can see the ocean from here, and smell the salty air through the half-lifted windows. It’s a lovely sight, but Barba has no difficulty in turning back around to face Carisi. </p>
<p>“What’s the rest of your week look like?”</p>
<p>Carisi’s face falls. “Tomorrow is Monday.”</p>
<p>The way he says it--like it’s something he’s reading aloud from a pamphlet and wants a second opinion--makes Barba feel a sting of that early pity he held. Carisi looks bereft for the realization, like it’s taken something from him: hope, maybe. Or promise. </p>
<p>“Sunday is often its forebearer.” Just enough doubt gathers like storm clouds, and Barba starts to issue a careful cover: “If you don’t--”</p>
<p>“I <i>do.”</i> Carisi’s interruption is quick and emphatic. “I’m just thinkin’ past, you know, Monday night.”</p>
<p>There’s another grin, as wolfish as those he shot off left and right in the kitchen, but it wanes.</p>
<p>Carisi leans against the doorframe. He does the mental calculus, divides his weeknights and weekends searching for substantial time. He should have some--after the academy, after earning his badge, after night school, after passing the bar, after everything he’s worked for is attained, where are the empty spaces? He realizes he filled that time with work, whether actively doing it or lost in thought about how he should have done it better. </p>
<p>Carisi thinks, <i>I used to read on the subway ride home.</i> All he does now is watch people, and not in a way he enjoys.</p>
<p>He finds that’s answer enough. </p>
<p>The bubble of light drawing in begins to burst as the sun rises that much higher. The room is made brighter, more open. Carisi can see into the shadows and through them, and beyond that: a smile tugging at one corner of Barba’s mouth. </p>
<p>For as much as his joy is a choice, it’s an easy one. </p>
<p>He comes up to stand beside Barba, their arms touching. He feels like he should be facing the man to say what’s caught in his throat--but he can’t bring himself to step into the other man’s sunlight, not when they can enjoy it together. He compromises with a turn of his head, so that his nose is pressed slightly into Barba’s hair. </p>
<p>(Carisi realizes he is--again--taking these grand leaps towards intimacy, the kind he’s been rightly rebutted for in the past as coming on too strong, too fast, too eager. But never once does Barba cringe or frown or purse his lips. He doesn’t roll his shoulders back and make distance between them. His response is always one of seeming bemusement, softening at once into delight. It’s as though he’s being handed plate after plate of hors d'oeuvres at a party. <i>Oh? For me?</i>)</p>
<p>“I’d like to take you to dinner,” Carisi says. “As soon as possible.”</p>
<p>“You’ve made me two dinners,” Barba says with a hint of challenge. They’re both standing on the cusp of something, can feel the wind at their backs urging them to take that leap.</p>
<p>“Weeknights,” Carisi says, his voice hoarse. He swallows to clear his throat. “Weekends. And--I have a lot of vacation time socked away.” This, he thinks, is one foot into open air. Dinner dates are one thing, but he’s been spoiled now by two days of time unspooling around them. He wants to see Barba like this: from morning until night, fully, and thereafter. </p>
<p>“I guess I haven’t really wanted to just sit with myself on some random Tuesday.”</p>
<p>It’s a bizarre thought--<i>I should take time so we can share it</i>--and nothing short of presumptuous. Except, he feels he gleaned the thought from Barba, who had it first.</p>
<p>“But I’d, uh, love to sit with you.”</p>
<p>Carisi could kick himself. There’s so much more he wants, hopes to have, and feels is now within his grasp, yet he knows attempting a comprehensive list would make him sound certifiably insane. Stringing a coherent thought together that includes both <i>get to know you better</i> and <i>memorize the weight of your arm if you put it over my shoulder vs. my chest</i> is outside of his wheelhouse on his best days. Today, he hasn’t got a chance.</p>
<p>But of course Barba has that same soft look on his face, with a touch of bewilderment meeting the crests of his eyebrows. His mouth is pinched back to mask a smile. </p>
<p><i>I’d like that too,</i> he thinks, but says: “I’m going to a conference at the end of the month. San Francisco.” He hadn’t remembered it until just this moment, but as with any inconsequential thing touched by love, he thinks it has promise. “I may stay the week. I’ve never seen the redwoods and I’d like to. How does that sound?”</p>
<p>Carisi loses a step, rears back. “For real? You’re serious?” </p>
<p>Barba turns to look at him very carefully. It isn’t hesitance that delays his answer, but satisfaction. He drinks in the certainty of the moment. It’s taken a year to come to terms with his last rash decision, and for a moment he wonders if this is no different. But the radical sensation he feels is unmistakable <i>joy,</i> waves of it, and he takes Carisi’s hand with his own in an effort to share it.</p>
<p>“I feel good about this,” he says, softer than intended though no less sure. “But we can have dinner, first.” </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>In a few short hours, the rest takes place: simple errands like tidying the kitchen one last time, packing their things, walking the same stretch of the beach in a tidy precession, and boarding the yacht suddenly and inexplicably result in them having returned to Manhattan. </p>
<p>But, for seeing the mass of skyscrapers come into view and overtake the sky, Carisi isn’t gripped by the same sense of dread that had issued his departure only two days ago. With the fresh air he’s taken into his lungs, Carisi feels his presence here is more assured, and he’s not rounding every corner towards some inevitable sinkhole. </p>
<p>His focus is centered on the back of Barba’s head as he follows him down the dock. At one point, Barba throws a smile over his shoulder when Carisi’s hand meets his back to guide him down a ramp, and Carisi is so struck with a sense of indisputable clarity, he nearly misses a step himself.</p>
<p>He understands--or wants so much that he claims the right--more about the past year, this weekend, and the future in one instant than he has in months of miserable obsession. There’s sense, now, in what terrified him. He doesn’t diminish it, but nor does he give those fears undeserved power over him. He gives equal footing to the good things he’d buried in an effort to protect them--his law degree, chief among them. </p>
<p>Beyond getting a sense of what he wants, Carisi names it explicitly: he wants happiness for its own sake. Happiness, not because he’s somehow earned it, or he’s due, but because it’s here. Because by chance he had a lovely weekend with someone his heart has ached for, and he can’t take one more second of that ache when doing so would be another in the throng of self-imposed torments to which he’s grown accustomed. </p>
<p>It’s unnecessary. </p>
<p>And if he’s brave, he can have better.</p>
<p>No one’s asked him to cede to some grand notion of propriety and respectability, least of all Barba, who wants to plan Carisi’s new career and take business-trip-vacations with him on any available coast. It’s audacious and thrilling from the offset, but none of it feels wrong. Carisi thinks he can banish this awful loneliness that’s taken hold of him--not with the advent of Barba, necessarily, but by embracing the man Carisi wants to be when they’re within one another’s sights. Barba thinks Carisi is destined for greater things; Carisi can better picture himself trying if his one-man cheering section is Rafael Barba. </p>
<p>It’s true, Carisi himself hasn’t walked away from everything and come away clean, hasn’t stepped into the abyss with only his skills to carry him forth; he doesn’t have Barba’s trial-by-fire confidence. But this weekend has restored in him enough faith to summon a brazen attempt.</p>
<p>Carisi very nearly overtakes Barba on the last steps of the pier as he cozies up to solicit an all-important question, that first, fine, wild thing that--if done--means nothing else is impossible. </p>
<p>
  <i>“Can I come home with you? Please.”</i>
</p>
<p>He’d craned forward to speak against the shell of Barba’s ear. He’s close enough now that he feels the smile spreading across Barba’s face, his answer with it. And though Carisi delights in the response, he <i>rejoices</i> in the ease of its issuance. </p>
<p>Barba’s fingers are suddenly on Carisi’s forearm, deftly scaling its length until their hands are gripped together. It’s the end of summer, but Carisi feels he’s being led from a dark and desolate winter. He repeats silently to himself Barba’s easy answer, applying it with increasing giddiness to every next great thing he wants.</p>
<p>Live a little? Get back into photography and cooking? </p>
<p>
  <i>Yes.</i>
</p>
<p>Become an ADA?</p>
<p>
  <i>Of course.</i>
</p>
<p>Have this beautiful man--tonight, to start?</p>
<p>
  <i>Don’t make me wait.</i>
</p>
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